Obama brings a laundry list of laudable and exceptional qualities to a political scene that has lacked ANY for far too long.

Plus, he has remarkable ears - like another steady, unflappable winner.

http://cousinavi.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/bugs-obama-vs-yosemite-same/

Bob, I've been reading you since before that endorsement, and have agreed whole-heartedly with almost every single thing you have said on here. I've been for Obama since before Iowa, and knew that once he clinched that early primary win, it was just a matter of time before we'd be addressing him as "President." This is looking more and more like the most prescient reality, and you called it. Kudos.

Brilliant stuff. I've been saying for about 1.5 years now that he has not only a great sense of humility, but that as a true visionary, the complementary awareness that he is only the medium for the message. That it really isn't about him--that it's about getting people engaged in the process again (and out of the TV den). His empathetic ability to get outside of himself and not revile the other is soooo foreign to the arrogant "attack the other" sports-creep discourse that prevails today.

I remember going to High School with a seriously nerdy dude named Al Jean (you know him, right Bob?). He used to sit in front of me and fall asleep in Algebra II and Trigonometry class. At 16 and a senior, he was, hands down, the smartest kid in school, yet he was reviled because he didn't fit in with the prevailing culture. Well, we all know how that turned--Al's the multi-millionnaire Executive Producer of the Simpsons that you see first during the credit scroll, and has been for years. We never knew how brilliant Al was, because we couldn't really "see" him through anything other than a simplistic neo-darwinistic cultural lens. So many Americans are like us High School schmucks were--they can't see who he is because because they have no real frame of reference for someone who is the modern day equivalent of a, dare I say it, philospher king?

Either that or it's because he's black. :P

I remember Brooks talking about that Niebuhr incident in the original article he wrote, back in April of last year, because that's when I decided I was an Obama supporter once and for all. I remember being absolutely awe-struck by Obama's quick reaction to the question, as I was a Philosophy major and a closet religious studies nut, having spent a few of my late teenage years as a brainwashed Born-Again Christian under the sway of the insidious Campus Crusade for Christ. Niebuhr helped me slowly transition from Zombified Christian Douchebag to the fully-cleansed and baptized-in-realism Atheist Douchebag I am today, and he was like a philosophical security blanket throughout that dark period in my life.

For years I've practiced the Jeffersonian habit of keeping a Commonplace Book, wherein choice passages from whatever I’m reading at the time can be copied, cross-referenced and stored away for future reading. After reading Brooks's original story, I sought out an early commonplace book I kept on Science and Religion, found the well-thumbed Niebuhr section, and paid homage again to the one thought of his that sums up why I'm a Liberal:

The sad duty of politics is to establish justice in a sinful world.

Justice in a sinful world. Not vengeance or retribution or empty talking points about personal responsibility and God's Will, but very simply, justice in a sinful world. There is simply none of that sentiment in the modern Republican party. They have no concept of social, economic or political justice. That's why I'm a Liberal.

What sort of blank-eyed stare would Sarah Palin have given Brooks had he posed this question of her in person, or what cosmic, voluminous silence would have filled the telephone? What would John "Me First" McCain think of such a philosophy? They're both intellectual lightweights and should be publicly embarrassed for their puny thinkboxes.

Nate says it's over 90% probability for Obama, with state polling at high water marks nearly all across the board.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/search/label/today%27s%20polls

Anyone know any good sculptors?

http://dqd.com/~bmayoff/South_Dakota/Mount_Rushmore/FOLDER01/07%20Mt%20Rushmore.JPG

Wow, Bob. That was truly wonderful. Thank you for resurrecting it. I got here in April - not sure I recall entirely how or what post of yours I followed - probably something from HuffPost. But in any event, since I've been here, it has always been your idealism that has inspired me.

Bob wrote:

However awesome it'd be, I'm not saying these things in exchange for a flight aboard Marine One. I mean, I wouldn't turn it down, of course... but that's not why.

I hope you get it. :) And I say that with only a little bit of sitting on my hands trying not to yell "Take me with you!" :)

QT

I usually read Brooks because from-time-to-time he will actually write something perceptive. This is one example. "Social perception" is a useful term for the trait I have seen in Sen. Obama.

And, Bob, is was mostly your influence that tilted me to Sen. Obama in the early days. Thanks.